


Skinny Thanksgiving

by TriplePirouette



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Modern AU, Skinny Steve, Thanksgiving, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, covid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:27:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27786709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriplePirouette/pseuds/TriplePirouette
Summary: A Pre-serum Steve Rogers has to quarantine due to Covid, his neighbor, Peggy, gets his mail. Thanksgiving is coming up, and he seems lonely.
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	Skinny Thanksgiving

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr Prompt from CaptainPeggyCarterIsMySexuality: An AU where Peggy and Steve are neighbors [he can be Cap if you want] and Peggy invites Steve over for Thanksgiving meal since he to lives alone.
> 
> Modern, Skinny!Steve AU. All my Thanksgiving stuff is HORRIBLY influenced by the fact that we didn’t go anywhere because of the virus. I hope everyone is staying well and healthy.

Peggy knocked on his door, waiting. She heard him shuffle over and lean against the door to look through the peephole. She smiled and waved. “Delivery!” She tried to be as bright as she could, she knew he’d been down lately.

If she hadn’t left her apartment in nine months she’d be depressed, too.

“Hey Peggy,” Steve called through the door. “How are you today?”

“Doing well, how about you?” She juggled her keys and the two sets of mail in her hands to put on her mask.

“Oh, same old,” he said, opening the door. He looked even smaller and thinner than when she’d last seen him, and she hoped the mask hid her frown. Behind his face shield and mask, his eyes were dull. “How’s the outside world?”

“Still fucked up,” Peggy held out his stack of mail. “You’re better off in there.”

Steve took the stack of mail, hands encased in vinyl gloves. “Oh, that’s debatable at this point.”

Peggy fidgeted, licking her lips under her mask. “Doctor still says to stay inside?”

Steve nodded, “He says the numbers are going back up, so I’d better hunker down again. Not like I ever un-hunkered in the first place.”

Peggy laughed lightly. “Well, you know the drill, you need anything, you let me know.” Peggy thought she saw a flash of light in his eyes, but his expression was so hard to read under all the layers. She wanted to say something else, but she ended up standing there awkwardly, staring at him.

“Will do, thanks Peg.” He nodded after a long silence, held up the mail, and closed the door.

Peggy turned, going back into her own apartment. She ripped her mask off and leaned against her counter, her mouth in a grim line. The skinny, short, sweet man down the hall had moved in almost a year ago. They’d been slowly getting to know one another, and she’d been slowly falling for his charm and wit, when the pandemic hit.

He’d almost immediately holed up, and asked if she wouldn’t mind getting his mail. He was asthmatic, and had a heart defect, and ticked nearly every “high risk” box there was for the virus, so he hunkered down and barely opened his door those first few days. They’d started texting, a lot, and she was hopeful that they’d even manage a date in a few weeks when everything had died down, even if she hadn’t told him that.

A few weeks turned into months and she was helping him mail his art out and pick up groceries. What she had hoped would be only a few weeks now seemed endless, and she wasn’t sure exactly when the last time he’d set foot outside his apartment had been.

She was pretty sure it had been March, and she could tell he was suffering for it.

He was alone. She’d asked him once about it, if he had friends or family. She thought maybe they were at that point where they could get to know more about each other, start talking about pasts and really build a friendship. He’d just immediately apologized and said he wouldn’t bother her anymore, thinking she was tired of stopping at UPS and the post office and picking up his asthma medicine. Three days, about fifty texts and some loud banging at his door later, he finally spoke to her again and said he felt like he was being a terrible burden, but he was all alone. His parents were dead, no siblings or cousins, and he’d moved into town after his best friend had died in an Army training incident.

Peggy redoubled her efforts after that, knowing he’d barely open his door for her, but she started texting more often and left little post-its with his mail at the foot of his door. Slowly, he started to talk back more. Left her post-its on the outside of his door, and even passed her a picture he drew.

It was hanging on her refrigerator, held up only by the sticker from a banana. Titled sloppily “Through the Peephole,” it was a gorgeous rendering of her masked profile, the circle drawn around it signaling that it was his view of her from behind the door. She turned, looking at the sweet rendering.

A _ding_ alerted her to a new email, she opened it, read it, and smiled as an idea started to flourish in her mind.

~*~

* * *

She knocked on his door, but this time she was, as her mum would put it, kitted up. Gloves, mask, and face shield. She held his mail close, but didn’t let it touch anything other than her gloves.

“Peggy?” Steve asked, in his usual Covid armor, through the crack in the door.

She didn’t waste a moment. “I have a proposition.”

Steve nodded cautiously. “Alright.”

“What do you say to spending Thanksgiving together?” He started to open his mouth, the fears on the tip of his tongue that she’d heard before, but she forged on. “I’ve been told I’m to work from home until next year because so many people are traveling for the holidays. I can quarantine, get all the food delivered, and I’ll only go out to go down to the mailboxes to get our mail. If I start today, that’s 16 days. Then we can spend the holiday together instead of spending it alone.”

Her eyes bored into his, willing him to say yes. Her heart hammered in her chest for the long seconds he took to think it over.

“You’d do that? Quarantine?”

Peggy had to fight back the emotion she felt at the look in his eyes. It seemed far too hopeful, too excited, just for a visit from her.

“Quarantine? That’s the easy part. Nowhere I’m excited to go just now, and I’ll be working from home, so it’s easy to get my food delivered just like you do. We’ll have to figure out your UPS drops, and your medicine—”

“They’ll deliver,” he whispered, looking bashful, “And UPS will pick up from the front of the building.”

Even though she knew she should be annoyed, she couldn’t manage to feel the emotion. Peggy warmed a little at the thought that he’d been asking her to help him just to see her. She smiled under her mask. “So?”

“I’ve never cooked a turkey,” Steve said, a little mystified.

“Neither have I, but I can try.” Peggy bounced a knee, unsure of what to say next. When Steve didn’t say another word, she held out her hand with his mail. “Well, think about it, will you?”

He held out his hands, taking the envelopes silently. Peggy turned, her heart in her stomach as she headed back across the hall.

“Peg?”

She turned, vision only slightly blurred by the face shield. She absolutely was _not_ getting teary over this. “Yeah?”

“Want to come over early and watch the parade with me? I heard they’re still having something, maybe not as big, but I like to watch it.”

She smiled, it showed when it reached her eyes, “Only if we can watch the dog show afterwards. I love those little guys.”

“Deal.”


End file.
